


angular unconformities and drift substrates

by JoCarthage



Series: Long distances and close calls (2020 phone banking accountability fic series) [7]
Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Cuddling, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Napping, The tone is kind of sad for a fic about cuddles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:01:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27167615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoCarthage/pseuds/JoCarthage
Summary: Alex worries he's growing to depend too much on his Saturday afternoon naps with Michael.--This is a fic series where, after each day of phone banking for the democratic ticket in the US's 2020 presidential election, I will write a fic that's 10x the number of calls I made. So if I make 14 calls, I write and post a 140 word fic. If I made 72 calls, 720 words. If you'd like to start phone banking, you can sign-up for a good, comprehensive training here: https://demvolctr.org.
Relationships: Michael Guerin/Alex Manes
Series: Long distances and close calls (2020 phone banking accountability fic series) [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1970539
Comments: 18
Kudos: 64





	angular unconformities and drift substrates

**Author's Note:**

> I made 69 calls into Florida today, for a total of 768 calls so far. For the other people phone banking -- if you are open to sharing your number of calls/texts/postcards (either total, per week, per day) and if my style of writing is your jam, let me know what kind of fic you'd like in the comments or on tumblr (http://jocarthage.tumblr.com) and I'll try to write you a one-shot!  
> \--
> 
> This fic is in a vague, well-adjusted future. Well, mostly well-adjusted, Alex still has a lot of baggage he needs to unpack, as seen through this fic.

Alex was nearly certain this was going to end in tragedy.

He knew it was a bad habit to get into, that he wouldn't have Michael to nap on every Saturday afternoon. Michael's schedule would shift, or Alex's back would get bad and he wouldn't be be able to just flop himself over Michael's thigh, press his forehead into his hip as he lay with his legs stretched out across the couch, and fall asleep.

It couldn't last.

Michael would be writing in his design book, blue pen shifting and drifting across the pages as he perfected his next iteration on the console, now not so much a vehicle for leaving as a mechanism to understand. When Alex preened up against him, even just a little, he'd let his hand settle down over his hair, thumb sweeping across his scalp until he needed both hands again for his work. Alex craved those small pets, the way his entire body thrummed with them, the way his skin tingled with them. The way Michael gave them to him whenever he asked.

It couldn't last.

When he was particularly exhausted with the world, just fucking _done_ with family and fealty and freaking aliens, he would lay himself on Michael's lap, face the couch, tuck his hands under Michael's thigh, and fall asleep. It wasn't a position he'd grown up sleeping in, wasn't one he'd learned to think was _safe_. He _knew_ his back was exposed, his vision blocked, his hands lightly restrained, worn denim soft on his cheek and his palms. But still, when everything else was loud and terrible and he just needed to rest surrounded by the rich smell of him, it was what he did.

It couldn't last.

When it was a bad pain day and the world has narrowed to a few breaths at a time, to the timer on his phone between two hour cycles alternating acetaminophen and ibuprofen, he'd hitch Michael's ankle over his hip. He'll tell him why, he's learned to use his words and a number scale for pain so Michael had some idea what was happening. But Michael had told him he could tell it helped, how Alex's whole body relaxed at the gentle press of a leg or a hand or a kiss.

It couldn't last.

Alex had somehow let himself start to talk himself to sleep, during these naps, telling himself _you can sleep, Michael will keep you safe. Michael will protect you._ And he _knew_ that it was bullshit. Michael didn't win a lot of fights, was no match against men with guns or sleeping gas or a grenade through their window. But there was a childish part of Alex that _wanted_ to believe he could sleep in Michael's embrace, that Michael would watch out for him, watch over him.

It couldn't last.

He slept fine in their bed together. He woke-up a few times most nights, from how his body was so tense it hurt to turn his head, from familiar voices in a nightmare, from the sound of the heat turning off. And they didn't sleep wrapped-up in each other, not unless someone was really struggling. Most dawns found them bundled in their separate blankets. But those Saturday afternoons, Alex slept with a kind of black comfort, a level of restful blankness. He though he could get there because Michael was awake and watching and some small, torn, animal part of him knew that meant he could truly rest.

It couldn't last.

The worst part is he was starting to _prefer_ sleeping while Michael was awake. Even in bed, he would wake up early to read and enjoy seeing Michael rest. But when the other man blinked open his eyes, Alex would crawl over, press his ear against his beating heart, and pass out until their alarm rang.

Eventually, Michael would leave -- maybe only for a day, for an emergency trip, and maybe for a lifetime. And Alex wouldn't be able to sleep without the shape and smell and weight of him around him.

Alex was nearly certain this was going to end in tragedy. But he could wait.

**Author's Note:**

> Top quote from today's phone banking:  
> \- Martha, her voice quavering with age and her thick panhandle accent: "I'm a little anxious, but I feel like it's going to work."  
> \- Martha again, after she's excitedly said she would get he daughter to use her computer to sign them up to phone bank: "We want to do everything we can because I think we desperately need this change."  
> \--  
> The title uses two geological terms that always remind me of sleep. Angular unconformities are the places where the geological record is missing because of erosion and then was filled-in with newer sediment. That makes me think about how sleep is this gap in time where things happen in our brains we rarely have records of. And drift substrates is the surface of a rock where layers of material drifted down to cover it; so say you're at the bottom of a cool, still, shallow inland sea and there's a kelp forest overhead. As each leaf and branch and flower of the kelp dies and drifts down to the bottom, a new layer of organic material forms; eventually, unless something dramatically different than usual happens, this material will turn to stone; it will lithify. For me, this gets to the idea that when we're sleeping, we're working through the big chunks of living things in our lives, slowly turning them into something we can build upon. 
> 
> That's all very metaphorical for a fic about napping, but I figured I should share :D.


End file.
